New York City
New York City, abbreviated as NYC, is a large city in the state of New York, United States. It is the site of both outbreaks of BLACKLIGHT Infection, and is currently quarantined by the US National Guard and Blackwatch. No one can get in or out without Blackwatch authorization. The city that humanity has come to know and love for years no longer exists. First Outbreak The first Outbreak of the BLACKLIGHT virus lasted 3 weeks, beginning with Blackwatch's purge of Gentek scientists involved in the BLACKLIGHT project. Release During his attempt to escape, Alex Mercer, head of the project, was cornered by agents in Penn Station, Manhattan island. Before he was shot dead, he smashed a vial containing the virus on the ground, starting the outbreak and releasing the infection upon the citizens of New York City. Everyone in Penn station became infected and died minutes later from exposure to the virus. Blackwatch locked the station down, stopping all trains moving in and out and extracted all the corpses inside, taking them to the Gentek building in Manhattan for study. During this time, news coverage portrayed the act throughout the media as a Terrorist attack. Life continued on as normal, with the people in Manhattan living in cautioned fear with the presence of Blackwatch secretly observing but minimal. Alex Mercer, reanimated by the virus, escaped the morgue and pursuit of Blackwatch. Small pockets of infected civilians began to pop up as those that were near Penn station exhibited symptoms of severe illness and sickness. A few incidents would occur of infected people attacking others, but mostly these events were held back by conventional Law Enforcement officers of the New York Police Department, occasionally requiring the use of SWAT teams. Small teams of Blackwatch soldiers would be sent in secret to take care of whatever the Police could not handle. Besides this, things were relatively stable. Infected War This changed when Alex Mercer accidentally let Elizabeth Greene free. Upon her escape from Gentek, she let loose a small pack of Hunters upon the city, which wrecked havoc across a few city blocks, requiring the combined effort of Blackwatch soldiers and Alex Mercer to bring down. Elizabeth Greene then established a Hive Mind for the infected, rendering the few infected civilians under her control. With an intelligent mind directing it, the virus began to spread rapidly, with several covert infestations being made across the city. Fortified buildings would soon turn into small pocket hives for the infected, with a main hive well protected and near impossible to penetrate. Meanwhile, Manhattan Island was quarantined, with all of its bridges and tunnels fortified by the US National Guard to prevent the virus from spreading. The USS Ronald Regan remained nearby as the head deployment unit, with Battery Park established as the Headquarters of the National Guard and Blackwatch. Despite the efforts of the troops, the infection was claiming more and more of Manhattan island; the infection claimed about 80-90% of the city's population before Alex Mercer finally defeated Elizabeth Greene. The military began a massive retreat, allowing the virus to attempt to reclaim the city once more. Colonel Peter Randall, the leader of Blackwatch and the National Guard for New York, planned on detonating a tactical nuke to destroy the city, ending the infection at the cost of whatever troops and civilians were unable to evacuate in time. Alex Mercer stopped this effort, ensuring that Manhattan would survive Nuclear destruction. With his help, Blackwatch was finally able to eliminate the entire Infection; Mercer stealthily left New York, while the National Guard was tasked with the massive cleanup effort to help restore the broken city to normal. Second Outbreak Mercer's Return One year later, Alex Mercer returned to Penn Station, and deliberately re-released a new strain of BLACKLIGHT, initiating the second Outbreak. This time, he guided and directed the Infection to take over the City; much like Elizabeth Greene prior, but with more aggression and careful thinking. A State of Emergency was declared once more as the Infection quickly spread across Manhattan Island within a week; the National Guard tried their best, but were unable to stop the spread of the Virus and were powerless against Mercer himself. Within the second week, Blackwatch returned to quarantine New York once again. The new commander, Colonel Rooks, decided to abandon Manhattan Island altogether and pulled back the defensive emplacements on the bridges linking the island to the rest of New York, followed by destroying the bridges and tunnels with bombs to permanently cut off all possibilities of escape. Following this, Col. Rooks initiated a massive strike on Manhattan with Operation: DAMOCLES; Mercer stepped in and destroyed the weapons used for the strike, but not before it levelled and devastated the entire upper half of Manhattan Island, dealing a significant blow to the Virus and preventing its spread North. Despite the damage inflicted to the Infection, Col. Rooks considered the Operation a disappointment as it hadn't completely destroyed the island, in addition to losing the specialized weapons. Dragged into another state of prologned warfare, Blackwatch locked down all five Boroughs of New York and stopped all traffic flow into the City. Nothing could get in or out without their express clearance, as Martial Law was declared and the National Guard deployed fresh forces to the City under Blackwatch's command. The City was divided into three Zones according to threat level, Military presence, and the progression of Infection. Thus, New York came to be known as New York Zero, or NYZ; referred to as "Zero" as it was no longer the Empire State it once was. Locked in New York, the Virus would eventually run out of resources and be destroyed. Mercer infiltrated Blackwatch and Gentek, locating personnel in significant positions and infecting them with the "Evolved" Strain. He recruited these personnel after giving them their power, twisting them into his loyal pawns with which he could find means to escape the quarantine and spread the Virus across the planet. Mercer's ticket would be the cure developing at Gentek: the WHITELIGHT cure, projected to be able to destroy all strains of the Virus and permanently end it. Instead of trying to destroy it, Mercer had his Evolved taint the developing cure with his blood culture, thus corrupting it to essentially be the same as BLACKLIGHT. Thus, whenever it was ready for deployment, it would infect more people in a wide area instead of destroying the Virus. Heller's Intervention The scope of the Infection across NYZ was shifted with the integration of another powerful Infected being, James Heller. Formerly a Marine Sergeant who began taking suicide missions into the Red Zone in pursuit of vengeance against Mercer for the death of his family, Heller was found and Infected by Mercer to be another one of his Evolved pawns; however, Heller was instead altered into something more akin to Mercer himself as his unique DNA had a different combination with the Virus, and he went rogue against Mercer. Heller killed and consumed many of Mercer's Evolved, crippling his power structure and cleaning out Blackwatch and Gentek from Mercer's influence. Heller became aware of Mercer's WHITELIGHT Plot and initiated an early release just prior to its planned deployment, demonstrating its contaminated effects to Blackwatch as several of their soldiers were mutated into more Evolved. Blackwatch immediately shut down the WHITELIGHT deployment, storing it all in the production plant for assessment and ruining Mercer's plan. Heller was even able to slay a massive Goliath creature sent by Mercer to destroy the plant and release the WHITELIGHT across the Green Zone as a last resort to have it infect thousands of civilians. Afterwards, Heller used the help of Dana Mercer, Alex Mercer's sister, in the Red Zone to find his still-living daughter and defeat Mercer once and for all. Finally locating Mercer and the rest of his Evolved atop a building, Heller challenged his maker to a final fight; Mercer released his Evolved on Heller, overwhelming him with numbers andsustaining few casualties before stepping in himself and roughed Heller up with ease. Brought to the brink of death, Heller was about to be executed by Mercer before a Blackwatch Helicopter Strike attacked the rooftop; Heller and Dana had provided Mercer's location to Col. Rooks, who tried to eliminate Mercer, Heller, and the Evolved at once. The air strike failed in taking down Mercer, but it did provide Heller the chance to flee and escape as well as taking down more of the Evolved. The building was destroyed in the attack, leading all sides to temporarily retreat. Second Strike With Heller's disappearance, the conflict between the Military and the Infected settled back down to a more stable level; neither side could gain much advantage over the other, and with most of Mercer's power structure eliminated, he could no longer twist Gentek or Blackwatch projects into his favor for the time being. Thus, he re-infiltrated both groups to find replacements, using the help of Gentek CFO Sabrina Galloway, one of his top Evolved, to do so. After regaining Evolved imposters within both groups over the next month, Mercer sifted through the information they could provide him to search for weapon projects, chemical agents, or operation plans that Blackwatch planned to use against him, as well as any means for which he could spread the Virus beyond NYZ or help him to escape the quarantine. Final Strike and Destruction Much later, Mercer and his remaining Evolved finally wiped out all Military presence in the Red Zone and began taking over the Yellow and Green Zones. Their rate of spreading the Virus began to overwhelm the National Guard, who were suffering significant logistical setbacks from all the accumulated destruction of Military assets and the huge loss in personnel. Barely able to continue fueling the war effort, the Military was authorized to initiate a Nuclear bombing in order to stop the devastation before it got worse. Learning of this contingency, Mercer hatched a plan to survive the Nuclear strike and finally escape NYZ. He plotted with his top Evolved in Blackwatch to prepare transport aircraft with which they could use to escape the area of effect and make landing in New York State. The Yellow Zone began to be fully overwhelmed, and the Green Zone about halfway taken over, when the aircraft armed with the Nuclear weapon made its approach to NYZ. Coincidentally, the rogue Sabrina Galloway and her Evolved lackey Sam Greene arrived in desperate hope to find Heller, wherever he may be hiding, to increase their chances of survival against Mercer. As planned, the Nuclear device was dropped over the Red Zone and detonated just over Battery Park, completely destroying all of the buildings and killing off everything alive in all three of the Red, Yellow and Green Zones. Though Galloway and Greene were in the blast radius, the pair managed to survive the detonation by hiding in one of the underground Lairs in the Yellow Zone. Despite the devastation, Mercer's survival plan was a success as the Helicopters procured by Lt. Col. Hawk managed to evade the devastation and returned to the Green Zone to pick up several Infected creatures before moving on to New York State. One of the aircraft noticed movement in the ruined Yellow Zone, leading Hawk and some of his troops to check it out; this group was devastated by Galloway and Greene, the helicopters commandeered for the pair to escape. Hawk was left behind, but was later retrieved. Following this, the BLACKLIGHT Infection spread to New York State and began affecting the Mainland United States. What was left of New York City was completely abandoned. Breakdown New York City is a Metropolis megacity on the East Coast of the United States, located in the state of New York. It is comprised of five boroughs: Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Staten Island. During the first BLACKLIGHT Incident, the conflict was entirely contained on Manhattan Island. Blackwatch stepped in under General Randall's leadership and placed Manhattan under Martial Law, locking down all traffic leading into and out of the island; bridges were blocked off with Military fortifications, while tunnels were sealed off with brick and concrete. The virus could not spread across water, thus cutting off the Infection from reaching other areas. As the Infection spread, the National Guard increased its presence on the Island. Blue Zones were established in areas where Soldiers would patrol the streets, where Red Zones were areas with strong Viral presence and civilians Infected with the Virus violently moved about and attacked anything not Infected. The opposing sides met in open battle in the streets of the city, requiring heavier levels of enforcement on both sides; Blackwatch began establishing small Bases within pre-existing buildings across the city and fortified them with walls, defensive turret weapons and armored vehicles as well as Viral detectors, while the Infected began establishing Hives in pre-existing buildings to incubate stronger creatures with which to assault the Military opposition. Under Elizabeth Green's direction, an estimated 83% of Manhattan's population were Infected and the Red Zones spread to nearly cover the entire Island; leaving one large Military Zone in the Northwest near Harlem, and Battery Park, the established control center of Blackwatch forces and Red Crown Command, uninfected. Elizabeth was defeated and detained, and after Alex Mercer stopped New York from being destroyed by a Nuclear bomb, conventional warfare erradicated the Virus entirely from Manhattan and Blackwatch pulled out, leaving the National Guard to do cleanup duty. New York Zero During Alex Mercer's return to New York and the start of the second Outbreak, Blackwatch re-quarantined the City and placed all five boroughs under lockdown as the Virus managed to start spreading beyond Manhattan despite efforts to keep it contained. All bridges and tunnels were destroyed with explosives, and the entire upper half of Manhattan Island leveled with a massive firebombing strike, but the Infection persisted and engaged the Military in open war once more. New York was broken into three Zones at this time: *The Green Zone covered Staten Island, and was the headquarters of the new deployment of Blackwatch and the National Guard. Civilians were able to move freely and maintain their normal lives, though secretly being oppressed and observed by Blackwatch. Despite appearing clean of Infection, there are a number of underground Lairs hidden beneath the road and sidewalks. *The Yellow Zone comprised Brooklyn, and was an intermediary between the Military and the Infected. While the occasional event occurred in which civilians became actively Infected and caused death and chaos, most of the time the situation was under control as Blackwatch locked down the entire Zone and greatly restricted and observed civilian traffic across the area. Many civilians showing signs of sickness were detained and kept in fenced areas for processing, and if anyone wanted to go from one place to the next they had to proceed through numerous Military checkpoints where they were scanned for disease. Blackwatch supervised numerous experiments conducted by Gentek in this Zone, allowing the civilian population to be used as guinea pigs and be slaughtered by Infected creatures to better understand how to combat them. Beneath the ground, the Yellow Zone is dotted with numerous hidden Lairs. *The Red Zone is the lower half of Manhattan Island, completely overwhelmed and taken over by the Infected save for a few small Military Outposts in constant warfare with the Virus. The entire upper half was completely firebombed and wiped out, rendered uninhabitable as a White Zone/"Dead Zone" constantly monitored and rained down with artillery if any movement is detected, keeping the Virus from spreading north. The rest of Manhattan has much of its skyscrapers falling apart, some of them breaking from their foundations and leaning against each other; large collections of Viral Biomass cover the city, connecting buildings with huge tendrils like giant spider web or making hill-like growths. Less than 5% of the remaining population is uninfected, trapped within or on top of collapsing buildings and trying to hide out against the Infected which dominate the city streets. Beneath the ground are several dozen select areas of hidden Lairs. The Red Zone became the residence and playground of Alex Mercer and his Evolved, as they plotted to spread the Virus farther and sought an escape from NYZ. Expanded Zones After Heller's disappearance, a small reorganization of Military distribution to further close off the Infection lead to the inclusion of the remaining Boroughs of New York into NYZ. * Blue Zone: The Blue zone covers Queens, and has become heavily fortified by a high wall due to its adjacency to the Red and Yellow Zones as well as being a buffer between them and Long Island. The main headquarters for the Military Reserves and the Joint National Guard were located here as much of this Zone was converted into a place similar to traditional mainline United States Military Bases. Most of the source and support of the traditional Military force across NYZ was stationed here. * Black Zone: The Black Zone covers the Bronx. With the White Zone/Dead Zone buffering between it and the Red Zone, the Black Zone stands fairly safe from infection and, like the Blue Zone, is surrounded by a high wall protecting it from any physical intrusion. A Borough-wide communications safety net and monitoring area prevented just about any information from ever getting in or out of this Zone, making it highly secure and the perfect, ideal location for the new head of Blackwatch operations and the re-establishment of RED CROWN Command, as well as set up for the new Gentek facility headquarters. Gallery